Since 2014, Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall has become a reliable Halloween staple watches. Thankfully, that won’t be changing anytime soon, but it also turns out creator Patrick McHale is cooking up something new that’ll feel familiar to fans of Wirt and Greg’s adventures.
As revealed by Polygon, McHale will be contributing to Dstlry’s Christmas anthology comic Through the Boughs: A Yuletide Offering. The short story “The Man in the Blood-Red Coat” will see McHale reteam with Garden Wall storyboard artist Jim Campbell to tell a story of two goblin children living with their mother. Instead of going out to play in the snow, their mother wants them inside and safe from Santa Claus, or in the mother’s (largely accurate) words, “a fat, old ugly man in a blood red coat who wanders the earth sneaking into strangers’ homes.” In the press release, McHale called holiday illustrations and “old weird books…a continual source of inspiration” for their story.
Hello! @BlackfordManor and I wrote a little 7-page Christmas comic for this anthology, illustrated by Jim Campbell! It’s called “The Man in the Blood-Red Coat”. Out in December! https://t.co/8b90KxaZRc pic.twitter.com/VuWoMEYQbz
— Patrick McHale (@Patrick_McHale) September 26, 2024
Fellow Boughs contributors include Jensine Eckwall (Into the Goblin Market), Sweeney Boo (Harley Quinn), Molly Mendoza (Stray), Grim Wilkins (Petrichor) and Dstlry co-founder James Tynion IV (Something is Killing the Children). Being a longtime horror fan and writer, Tynion said he’s “always been drawn to the strange little stories we like to tell each other in the dead of winter. There’s something special about the holidays.” As for his own story he’s making with Eckwall, he called it a “strange little story I can’t wait for everyone to see.”
Through the Boughs: A Yuletide Offering will hit comic shops and retailers in December. For Over the Garden Wall fans, Dstlry’s also at work on an art book for the show, and Cartoon Network’s teamed with Aardman Animation to make something celebratory for the miniseries’ upcoming 10th anniversary.
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